Paris police detain mosque director

Aljazeera ^ | 05/02/04 | Aljazeera

[Pikamax]

Paris police detain mosque director

Sunday 02 May 2004, 6:12 Makka Time, 3:12 GMT

French Muslims are coming under increasing state scrutiny

French police have arrested the Turkish director of a Paris mosque with a view to expelling him, the Interior Ministry has confirmed.

The man, Mihdat Guler, is a 45-year-old Turkish national who has lived in France for 28 years, according to his son Abdurraham Guler.

Guler senior was described as head of the Islamic Association in France, which runs the mosque in Paris's Bastille area, although he does not preach.

The Interior Ministry confirmed that Guler faced possible expulsion but gave no further details.

His arrest late on Saturday came on the day that French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin pledged to press ahead with the deportation of Muslim clerics seen as extreme, while keeping in close touch with leaders of the country's large Muslim community on the issue.

Setback

Last month the government experienced an embarrassing setback when a court ruled illegal its decision to expel to his native Algeria a radical fundamentalist imam from the southeastern city of Lyon after he justified wife-beating in a magazine article.

The imam has since applied for a visa to return to France.

"A hard line against those who advocate violence is the best guarantee of a peaceful practice of the Muslim religion," de Villepin told a private meeting of regional Muslim religious leaders at the Paris headquarters of the Federation of Turkish Muslims.

Guler's mosque comes under the international umbrella of the ultra-conservative Kaplanci movement, which calls for an Islamist state in Turkey, said Haydar Demiryuek, spokesman for the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM).

Kaplanci is banned in Germany, he said, adding that of France's 400,000 Turkish residents, no more than 500 adhered to the outfit.

[cyborg]

bttt

[Texas Eagle]

Guler's mosque comes under the international umbrella of the ultra-conservative Kaplanci movement,

Ohhhhhhhh.....it's an ultra-conservative movement. Well now, we can't have extremists running around calling for tax cuts, limited government, personal responsibility, and all that other dangerous stuff.

[CitizenUSA]

Can the French actually be catching on, finally? I was convinced they were in a multicultural suicide pact with most of the other European nations.

[Pikamax]

the french are always about the french.

[CitizenUSA]

Hey, there's nothing wrong about the French always being about the French, as in what's good for them. I just wish more Americans would feel the same way about America! We've got the greatest country on Earth (and I've lived in more than a few), but too many Americans seem intent on sacrificing the principles that made us great in the first place. The poorest of our poor live better in many cases than 90% of the rest of the people on this planet, and we didn't get here by socialism!